The Pulpiteer

As I look at the worship schedule for the next couple of weeks, I notice that I have three Sundays left until Easter Sunday. That means that we’ve made it quite a way through Lent. I wonder how your Lenten journey is going. Has it been a time of growing thus far?

One thing I’ve particularly enjoyed is mid week communion with our small group. I enjoy communion, and it’s more than an individual and personal thing. I enjoy thinking, praying, sharing with a community and then breaking bread together and seeking God’s grace. It was encouraging for me to hear the feedback of the group in regards to how the small group sharing has been going. I see and hear God working in your lives.

As for myself, my prayer journal and a couple of other disciplines have been meaningful these past few weeks. I am looking forward to Easter, but also I am appreciating what God is doing now. It’s funny, sometimes it feels like just going through the motions as far as prayer and reading, but then other days, sometimes out of no where, I will really experience God’s presence. I’ve come to believe that whether or not I “feel” right, there is something important about simply being obedient.

I’ll close with a verse I read and thought about today – it’s from the Psalms
“O God, you are my God. I seek you.
My soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you
as a dry and weary land that has no water”

I pray that we would all long for God in that way.

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As we enter the season of Lent, I want to briefly examine a spiritual discipline that you may or may not be familiar with. As we begin our look at fasting, I’m going to put in some scripture that deals with fasting for you to read.

Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river Ahava, that we might deny ourselves before our God, to seek from him a safe journey for ourselves, our children, and all our possessions. For I was ashamed to ask the king for a band of soldiers and cavalry to protect us against the enemy on our way, since we had told the king that the hand of our God is gracious to all who seek him, but his power and his wrath are against all who forsake him. So we fasted and petitioned our God for this, and he listened to our entreaty. Ezra 8:21-23
When I heard these words I sat down and wept, and mourned for days, fasting and praying before the God of heaven. Nehemiah 1:4

But as for me, when they were sick, I wore sackcloth; I afflicted myself with fasting.
Psalm 35:13

Then I turned to the Lord God, to seek an answer by prayer and supplication with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. Daniel 9:3

Yet even now, says the LORD, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the LORD, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing. Joel 2:12-13

He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished.
Matthew 4:2

“And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” Matthew 6:16-18

Hopefully you noticed a few things as you read through those verses. These are not the only Bible references to fasting, but there are enough here for you to get a picture of what is going on. The first thing to notice is that it is an old practice. It has been done since Old Testament times by prophets and followers of God, as well as by kings (I didn’t include those references). Jesus fasted and gave us instructions for “whenever we fast.” In the big picture of the story of God’s people, then, it would appear that fasting is a normal practice for those who are following God, not a strange extreme measure practiced by a fringe group.

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